Page 59 of Through The Woods

The men shook their heads, waiting for me to make my diagnosis. I took in a slice that ran along the inside of his right calf. “Okay, I’m going to need the sewing kit to stitch up this cut. I’m not feeling any broken bones; but I think it’s safe to say that you’ve got a sprained ankle,” I paused as I remembered high school gym. “RICE—rest, ice, compression, elevation. You’re going to have to stay down here for a while unless the men can move you upstairs.”

He clenched his jaw. “Whatever you think, Neve. So, you really think alcoholics are in the same category as drug addicts?”

Rooster handed me the kit and I pulled what I needed from it. I’d been practicing my stitches on bananas and oranges. This was my first human case. Obviously, I was going to keep that to myself—no one wanted to be the first patient.

I swallowed my fear and began disinfecting the leg wound, using his question as a distraction. I didn’t take offense; most everyone saw themselves as better than an addict, never realizing that with one slip they could find themselves in the exact same boat. “Well, yes. Every addiction started somewhere; some moment where things got overwhelming and instead of facing it, you turned to a vice—a drug.”

He winced as the needle connected with his skin and I paused. “Just get it over with,” he forced out. “I’m gonna talk to keep myself from coming off the goddamned table, okay? Is that how you ended up here?”

I bit down on the corner of my lip and bent over; carefully placing another stitch with shaky hands. Wasn’t that how I’d ended up lost in the woods? An unhealthy desire to be the best? “Something like that,” I muttered distractedly.

“I enlisted the day I turned eighteen. That’s what the men in my family did and that’s what I wanted to do—uh, can you guys give us a minute?” The three shuffled out into the hall, leaving us alone and Guardrail continued, “Thing is, I was gonna break away from tradition and not come back. This club? It wasn’t ever in my plans.”

I paused again and straightened up, stretching the muscles in my lower back. “What happened?”

The journal had never mentioned anything about Guardrail—at least, not that I’d been able to decipher. It was hard to know when they were only mentioned by their real names.

He frowned. “I made it as far as the medical exam; it turned out that I had a heart defect. BAVD—Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease—a fuckin’ mouthful to say. That alone wasn’t a disqualifier though and I thought I still had a chance. The aortic stenosis they also discovered was what ended my career before it even began. A fucking birth defect killed everything.”

I returned my focus to his leg and the stitches, afraid to break the spell that had gotten him to open up. “Did they surgically correct it?”

“Oh yeah, the club paid for that shit too. Got myself a nice mechanical valve. Lay your head on my chest and listen.”

I did as he asked and heard the click; realizing that I’d heard it before, but had attributed the sound to white noise.

“I lost my chance to serve and found myself indebted to the club all at once. They let me open a body shop down in Denver, but it was just another front for Luck’s running.”

Something pricked my memory as I moved back down to his leg.

Mac came back to visit his Ma and offered me a job as a mechanic at his shop down in Denver.

He was Mac; and obviously, he hadn’t been able to hold on to even the smallest bit of freedom that the club had allowed him. “How’d you end up back here?”

His nostrils flared and he clenched his jaw. “Some things went down that required me to give up Denver and come back home. Are we almost done here?”

I’d struck a nerve and any good that had been done seemed to unravel until Guardrail had completely closed himself off again.

“Let’s move you up to your room. That way someone’s close enough to check in on you every few hours.”

He agreed and the other guys came back in just as I placed the last stitch.

It hit me out of nowhere.

This time, the craving for cocaine was stronger than before, muffling the sounds of the men around me, until all I could focus on was my need for it.

I wanted to run over to the cabinets and begin throwing doors open to look for blow. I knew they had to have some around here somewhere. I’d wait until they went back to bed and then I’d ransack the whole damn clubhouse if I needed to.

“You alright, kid?” Twitch eyed me curiously, “You zoned out on us.”

I nodded absentmindedly and ended up knocking the tools needed to be sterilized into the floor. “Yeah, just tired—that’s all.”

Rooster placed a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you go on back upstairs? We can take over from here. Joker, you mind getting Neve back to her room?”

The mute shook his head and offered me his arm and I wearily took it, even though I wanted to run screaming from the room—to claw at my skin until I could shed it. Anything to not feel like this. I’d been giving Guardrail advice as if I’d somehow mastered the art of staying sober.

I was nothing but a fraud.

Joker helped me back into bed and then left, closing the door softly behind him. I focused on each inhale and exhale while waiting for the clubhouse to settle into silence. I willed my mind to relax, but nothing seemed to work.

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